The present invention relates to a serial printer in which a print head is laterally and reciprocally driven along a print line of a recording sheet, so as to serially print characters onto the print line.
A serial printer includes a print head mounted on a carrier member in order to be laterally and reciprocally driven over a range substantially the same as the length of a print line. The print head serially prints characters onto the print line during the lateral and reciprocal movement in response to print head drive signals corresponding to character patterns of the characters to be printed.
To supply a drive signal to the print head, the print head is connected to a flexible cable, named carrier cable, which has a length long enough to permit movement of the print head over the entire length of the print line. The carrier cable is fixed to the print head at one end and to an appropriate portion of a frame of the printer at its other end. The intermediate portion between the fixed ends is not securely fixed to the printer frame and therefore follows the movement of the print head.
As the print head is driven laterally the intermediate portion of the carrier cable can suffer severe flexing and vibration. As a result, the carrier cable may suffer fatigue and break.
In a conventional serial printer, in an effort to prevent cable breakage, a flexible, thin metal plate is adhered to a surface of the carrier cable to supplement the strength of the carrier cable. However, the thin metal plate does not sufficiently strengthen the carrier cable against the complicated forces generated during sudden cable movement, such as occurs during sudden acceleration or deceleration of the print head. Additionally, the metal plate is very expensive, and it requires time and energy consuming process steps to assemble the carrier cable and the metal plate.